Mark D. Jenkins, 44, of Huntingtown was sentenced Feb. 28 to 10 years in prison for having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl.

Jenkins was indicted Aug. 20, 2012, on 14 counts of sexual abuse of a minor. He pleaded guilty Dec. 10, 2012, in Calvert County Circuit Court to one count of sexual abuse of a minor, for which he was sentenced last Thursday to 25 years in prison, with all but 10 years suspended, and was placed on five years of supervised probation upon his release. He will have to register as a lifetime child sex offender, said Assistant State’s Attorney Kathryn Marsh, who prosecuted the case.

On July 14, 2012, the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office contacted the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office about a possible sexual relationship between a 44-year-old man and a minor that occurred earlier that day in Prince Frederick, according to charging documents.

St. Mary’s detectives said a 16-year-old girl from Mechanicsville reported having sex with Jenkins earlier in the day at the Super 8 motel. The girl’s parents were upset, detectives said, because “they entrusted care and custody of their daughter” that day to Jenkins, who was the father of a friend of their daughter. The girl’s parents believed she was being taken to the library by Jenkins to study for her GED, charging documents state.

Jenkins agreed to meet Calvert County deputies at the sheriff’s office that day, where he was read his Miranda rights, which he waived, police said.

The girl’s parents gave Jenkins permission to pick the girl and her brothers up from school in St. Mary’s County and take her to his house, according to charging documents. Deputies said Jenkins told them he and the victim became attracted to each other in March and began expressing their attraction through their cellphones and emails. The relationship became sexual that same month at his house, deputies said, and every Wednesday they would have sex.

Jenkins allegedly gave deputies consent to download information from his iPhone, which contained inappropriate pictures of the girl. Jenkins “began to justify his relationship” with the girl by saying he had been married a long time and “that when a young pretty girl ‘pays attention’ to you it is very tempting,” according to charging documents.

Deputies then went to Calvert Memorial Hospital, where the girl was being examined. The girl’s parents told deputies they gave Jenkins permission to pick their daughter and her brothers up from school and defined the relationship Jenkins had with their children as custodial, charging documents state. The girl told deputies she had sex with Jenkins every Wednesday from March 14 to June 6 at his house and that they would communicate using iPods.

St. Mary’s detectives contacted deputies July 17 and said they had obtained two iPods from the girl’s parents, and information on those iPods included inappropriate pictures of Jenkins and the girl, according to court records.